Damn, Now I'm convinced that I need to read these books.
Are they Manga or actual novels? I'm down to read them either way.

There is a Manga and a Light Novel of SAO.
IMO, the Light Novel is considerably better compared to the Manga.

It's all the same story regardless of the medium, there's just information that is exclusive to each one (typically just small things that help the context of a particular scene.) The Novels are the linear plot for the Anime.

LoL who cares for the olympics. I want SAO! Its the anime that made me believe in the fact that a light novel could produce such a vivid, loving, and slighty gritty swordplay. The MMORPG style of the novel and anime looks like a better concept than the MMO's that are out to this day.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

(The whole community has the same goal, yet each player still has their individualality and other attributes original to them )

Hey, the light novels for SAO were written in 2001/2002 or something. What MMO do you think the author got experience in that led to the inspiration of Aincrad Online? I keep wondering, because I know some MMOs didn't get marriage systems till like 2003-2004. Maybe it existed in other MMOs I didn't know about that were only available in Asia. I remember in 2006 there being some weird MMO with mechas in a fantasy world.

Dual swords is pretty wild. In older MMO's they never let you equip two swords at the same time.

Also, I think DARK SOULS might have made homage to the the Skull Reaper scene with its Demon Centipede scene. Just watch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB904ffl5xY

Also, speaking of which you can dual wield swords in Dark Souls. Theres also a long coat like Kirito's in the exansion DS: Artorias of the Abyss, which is out this month.

Hey, the light novels for SAO were written in 2001/2002 or something. What MMO do you think the author got experience in that led to the inspiration of Aincrad Online? I keep wondering, because I know some MMOs didn't get marriage systems till like 2003-2004. Maybe it existed in other MMOs I didn't know about that were only available in Asia. I remember in 2006 there being some weird MMO with mechas in a fantasy world.

Dual swords is pretty wild. In older MMO's they never let you equip two swords at the same time.

Also, I think DARK SOULS might have made homage to the the Skull Reaper scene with its Demon Centipede scene. Just watch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB904ffl5xY

Also, speaking of which you can dual wield swords in Dark Souls. Theres also a long coat like Kirito's in the exansion DS: Artorias of the Abyss, which is out this month.

Maybe his inspiration was what he thought MMO's could be. If SAO was really an mmo I would play it for sure. Aincrad is interesting, especially the detail he puts into it but I don't think I would play it with the different races against each other.

Currently the only news I can get is it'll be 25 episodes long. Does that mean that's all that's planned, but it can be extended, or does that literally mean 25 episodes and no more.

I really hope not because i LOVE this anime.

Given the popularity and assumed financial success, I would guess that we'll see season(s) beyond the currently planned 25 episodes, eventually. "Eventually" meaning that there is, I would say, next to no chance it will be continued directly after the currently announced 25 episodes end (so not at the start of 2013).

How much of a delay before another season might appear? I would take a (random) guess of October 2013. We'll have a better idea once they announce that another season has been green-lit. The delay between the green-light announcement for the first season and its air date was 9 months; it could be a faster turnaround for the next season, but that's a good benchmark.

*edit* woops... this was supposed to be a reply to someone up-thread say that the first arc's episodes seemed to skip forward unevenly.

They skipped forward... but that actually followed the LN pretty faithfully. They even took the Volume 2 and 8 side stories (Liz and the Ice Dragon, Silica and Pina, the in-area murder mystery, the Christmas story, and Yui's intro) and shuffled them into the main storyline where they belonged.

I think that what they would have had to do to stretch the Aincrad arc to fit 24 episodes would have just amounted to padding single episodes into two-parters. They actually covered all the story (that I've seen in the light novels so far...).

Ok, Kirito is the Gary Stu of this series, whether SAO or in the ALO world so far now.

I'm glad they're starting this arc officially though. It looks more mystical compared to the SAO world despite some of the similar designs as mentioned by Yui. Oh speaking of Yui, she looks cute in her pixie form .